The Truth About The Pollard Affair

For me its the fact he took a lot of money for doing it, and the US now know Israel traded the the information to the Russians and it broke up intelligence operation and may well have cost lives. 30 years was adequate. Thats plenty close to life.

Government: Convicted Israeli Spy Jonathan Pollard's Secrets Still Threaten National Security

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: December 14, 2015 - 5:31 pm
Last Updated: December 14, 2015 - 5:32 pm

NEW YORK — The federal government says most of the information convicted spy Jonathan Pollard had and passed along to Israel 30 years ago remains top secret and could gravely harm national security.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Tinio spoke in Manhattan federal court Monday after Judge Katherine Forrest asked if he still possesses top-secret information.

The judge is considering his lawyers' request to relax parole conditions after his release from prison last month. They say what he knows is no longer valuable. Parole conditions include monitoring of his computer and his whereabouts, along with a curfew.

Forrest said a one-page explanation from the U.S. Parole Commission supporting the conditions is insufficient. She says she will await a better explanation before deciding whether they are appropriate.

Read more: http://www.tribtown.com/view/story/b2498675dc9e416496a41e5ff59e91b5/US--Pollard-Spy-Release

On a graph of Impact on one axis and intent on the other, Pollard is at the top right corner - Lots of damage, intent to make lots of money. To me that calls for the maximum punishment. I also think that white collar criminals who do extensive "soft" damage but don't actually pull the trigger themselves shouldn't get a lesser penalty just because it is hard to fully characterize the impact of their crimes.

That said, I don't know why it is 30 years vs 15 vs 5. I don't really buy the argument that what Pollard knows is still valuable. The Defense department should know what he took and have taken the appropriate action. It does burn me that he's going to leave the US and be a hero in Israel, but satisfying my small desires is not what should drive prison sentences. I do think that five years would not provide a serious deterrent. I don't know that 30 is significantly different than 15 in that respect.

I guess there is just a vast difference we see the impact of their crimes. I do not think he caused anywhere near as much damage as a rapist or murderer even though he served more than double the sentence murderers do on average and over triple what rapists serve on average.

To be honest I have never seen anyone articulate any significant damage that he caused.



People who are in the business of keeping secrets (and acquiring them from others) always want the harshest penalties for not keeping secrets (or providing them to others) and while I understand their reasons for doing so given the job they are in I almost never agree with them because I fundamentally do not value keeping secrets the way they do and don't share their worldview. These agencies have a natural tendency to seek more power and I think these agencies should have less power and not more.

Pollard has done less damage than these agencies themselves routinely do. They are some of the most morally shady groups on earth. I think he needs to be punished as he agreed to not share information then upon being given access to it he sold it, but I do not think the punishment fits the crime. These agencies spent billions of our dollars attempting to get other people on other sides to commit these same crimes (and we protest just like Israel when guys we turn get caught and are punished) and are just angry because he's not "our" asshole.

I don't find Pollard sympathetic in any way but I just don't see as much moral high ground here as I do with rapists and murderers to sentence him to 30 years in prison. In the tug of war for power he played for himself and Israel and against the US. Sucks for the US and the US should punish it if it seeks to prevent this kind of thing but it's nothing more than we would do to others and just like Israel, when others catch our agents and punish them we will advocate on their behalf and pressure them for their release (e.g. after CIA agents gunned down two men, ran over and killed another in their escape and were caught and charged with murder the US paid blood money to have them released).

The violation to Pakistan was far far greater than anything Pollard did but we want no punishment for going over to their country and running over their people while gunning down others. I don't see a lot of moral high ground for these agencies here, they are playing a fundamentally dirty game and when they scream foul I am not nearly as moved.

It could be another 25 or 50 years before the entire scope of Pollard's treachery can be fully declassified, and when historians will begin writing books to explain the magnitude of the damage. Don't forget we were dealing with a different world 30 - 40 years ago. Some people may think secrets to Israel so they can use protected US intel to the Soviets doesn't warrant a 30 year sentence. I don't have a problem with it, I'm not sure what Israel thought the Soviets would do with US Intell but it had to be of great interest to the old Super Power and would be a detriment to the safety of the US and Israel is not stupid.

DAMAGE IN POLLARD SPY CASE TERMED SERIOUS BLOW TO U.S.
AP
Published: February 19, 1987



WASHINGTON, Feb. 18— The secrets provided to Israel by Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former civilian intelligence analyst for the Navy who was convicted of spying for Israel, dealt as serious a blow to national security as any other espionage case in United States history, prosecutors said in court papers released today.

''The breadth and volume of the U.S. classified information sold by defendant to Israel was enormous, as great as in any reported case involving espionage on behalf of any foreign nation,'' Federal prosecutors said in a 16-page memorandum filed in the Pollard case.

The Government said the damage resulting from Mr. Pollard's spying exceeds that caused by Ronald W. Pelton, a former National Security Agency employee, who was convicted last year of selling classified electronic surveillance secrets to the Soviet Union.

''Pelton compromised specific intelligence-gathering methods in a specific area, and damaged the U.S. position relative to the Soviet Union,'' the prosecutors said. $500,000 in Payments Expected But they added, ''Pollard compromised a breadth and volume of classified information as great as in any reported espionage case and adversely affected U.S. interests vis-a-vis numerous countries, including, potentially, the Soviet Union.''

They also disclosed that Mr. Pollard, who was paid more than $50,000 by the Israelis, expected to earn ''10 times that amount'' for continued spying. But he was arrested on Nov. 21, 1985, on his way to the Israeli Embassy in Washington to request asylum.

The Government's statement was filed in opposition to a request by Mr. Pollard for information about other spy cases before his sentencing, which is scheduled for March 4.

Mr. Pollard, a 32-year-old avowed Zionist, pleaded guilty last summer to charges of selling a vast array of military secrets to Israel. His wife, Anne Henderson-Pollard, pleaded guilty to lesser charges of criminally possessing classified documents. She also awaits sentencing. Pollard Attorney Disagrees

Mr. Pollard's attorney, Richard Hibey, said he disagreed with the Justice Department's assertions on the damage his client had caused.

''We strongly disagree with that,'' Mr. Hibey said. ''We don't feel that there is anything in any of the papers they have submitted, either classified or unclassified, that supports their position.''

Mr. Pollard, in a request filed by Mr. Hibey, sought Government files containing evidence of espionage committed by any American citizen on behalf of Israel in an attempt to document his claim that the Justice Department chose not to prosecute other people detained on charges of spying for Israel.

Federal prosecutors emphatically denied this claim. The prosecutors also urged Federal District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr., who is scheduled to sentence Mr. Pollard, to deny his request to inspect the ''top secret'' assessment of damage to national security filed in Mr. Pelton's case.

Mr. Pelton was sentenced last December to three life terms plus 10 years for selling secrets to the Soviet Union about electronic eavesdropping that he learned in 14 years as a National Security Agency technician.

By the large suitcases full and before he made his deal with Israel he was shopping around for other nations to become buyers.